Quidditch
Trees surrounded him, casting the world into a mess of shadows and leaves. He turned, not knowing where to go or what to do. He was lost and weaponless—not a great combination.
A branch cracked to his left, and he whirled, peering into the darkness but hesitant to investigate.
Something breezed past him, and a cold trickled down his spine as he turned slowly around. There was nothing there that he could see, but he was being watched. No, not watched—hunted. And the thing—whatever it was—was toying with him.
No, he realized suddenly, and his blood turned to ice. There wasn’t only one predator—there were two of them, and they were both watching him, waiting in the creeping darkness.
His heart started beating quickly enough that it was hard to breathe. Sounds began to jump out at him from every direction, and then he was sprinting, trying to escape the horrors around him. His legs burned and his lungs screamed at him to stop, but he kept running, trees streaming past him on each side.
He stumbled over roots and fallen branches but didn’t slow. He ran and ran, not daring to look behind him for fear of what he would see.
He reached a clearing and looked around frantically for the best way to go. His heart stopped as something came thundering toward him, and he dove out of the way as the unicorn ran past him, silver blood falling from its sides.
The unicorn disappeared into the darkness, running the way he had just come, and he paled as the screech of pain came a second later. There was a slight snap and a large thud, and he retreated to the opposite end of the clearing just as it appeared.
A hooded figure crawled toward him, its cloak dragging behind him. It was covered in silver blood, but he was focused on the bit of blood dripping down the thing’s chin.
A horrible laugh filled the clearing, and he covered his ears with his hands as the things got closer and closer, a rotting stench radiating from it as though it had been dead for a decade.
“What do you want?” he just managed to choke out as the thing came right up to him. He backed away quickly, but his foot caught a branch and he fell, scrambling backward as the thing nearly crawled on top of him.
His heart threw itself against his ribcage as he looked up at the thing’s face. The image flickered, just for a second, and he thought he saw—
The thing lunged.
Donnie sat up, gasping for breath.
The morning of the first Quidditch match—Gryffindor versus Slytherin—dawned bright and cold. The Great Hall was full of the delicious smell of fried sausages and the cheerful chatter of everyone looking forward to a good Quidditch match.
Raph sat near Harry, Ron, and Hermione, piling some waffles on his plate. His brothers were at their respective tables, and Raph smiled softly at the booming laughter coming from the crowd around Mikey at the Hufflepuff table. He knew none of his brothers had been very sociable in the beginning, when they first got to Hogwarts. Hell, the only person they knew in their tiny apartment in London was Beatrice, the owner of the tiny store where they got their groceries. She usually gave them the food for free, as in her mind, they were no older than ten and had not a penny to their names—which Raph supposed was technically true, but he still felt guilty about it.
“You’ve got to eat some breakfast.”
Ron’s voice pulled Raph out of his thoughts, and he turned his attention over to where Ron and Hermione were trying to coax Harry into eating. Harry, meanwhile, sat at the table, a look of nervous apprehension on his face. That’s right, Raph thought, Harry’s playing today.
“I don’t want anything,” Harry said.
“Just a bit of toast,” tried Hermione.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Harry, you’ve got to eat,” said Seamus Finnigan. “Seekers are always the ones who get clobbered by the other team.”
“Thanks, Seamus,” Harry said, still making no move to eat.
“He’s right, you know,” Raph chimed in as Seamus piled ketchup on his sausages. “About needing your strength, I mean—I don’t know if Seekers always get clobbered.”
“They do,” Ron chimed in helpfully.
Raph sent him a look and continued, “Even just a small bite of some eggs will make you feel better.”
Raph knew how Harry felt, truly. He knew how his appetite used to disappear before a big mission, how even the thought of eating would make him nauseous. He learned eventually, though—even if it took a long, long time.
“I said, I’m fine,” Harry gritted out, glaring at him. Ron shook his head, exasperated, and Hermione sent Raph a look that seemed to say, ‘Well, we tried.’
But Raph held the boy’s glare, not backing down. After a tense few moments, Harry reluctantly took a single egg, put it on his plate, and took the smallest bite he could. Raph smirked, satisfied.
Soon it was time for everyone to make their way to the Quidditch pitch. Raph wished Harry luck as Oliver Wood, the captain of the Gryffindor team, ushered Harry away to the locker room. He was about to leave with Ron and Hermione when a hand fell on his shoulder.
Raph turned to find Leo holding him back. His brother’s face was grim. Behind him, Donnie was tapping his leg anxiously. Mikey, on the other hand, somehow looked confused in an oblivious sort of way.
Raph beckoned for the others to go on ahead. “We’ll catch up,” he said. He turned to his brothers. “What’s up?”
Leo pointed at Donnie.
Donnie paced the width of the deserted corridor, walking back and forth, back and forth.
“Why is it, whenever we have to talk, it’s always you, Donnie?” Raph demanded, leaning against the stone wall with his arms crossed.
“Leave him alone, Raph,” Leo said, turning to Donnie, who was still pacing. He yawned, then said, “Donnie, what do you need to tell us?”
Donnie paused, biting his lip. “There was…” he started, then shook his head. “Do you guys remember—” He shook his head again, taking a deep breath. “There’s something bad going on in the Forbidden Forest,” he said eventually. “I think—I think it’s dangerous.”
“How could you know what’s going on in the Forbidden Forest?”
“What is going on in the Forbidden Forest?”
“And how do you know it’s dangerous?”
Donnie decided to answer Raph, Mikey, and Leo one at a time.
“I know because I was in the Forbidden Forest, where there were these… piles of leaves.”
Leo raised a brow, and Donnie started talking, and the longer he talked, the higher the brow went, until it almost disappeared into Leo’s hairline.
“So something is killing… unicorns? In the Forbidden Forest?” Leo said eventually. “How do you know it’s unicorns?”
“The blood was silver, Leo,” Donnie said. “Not many animals in the Forbidden Forest have silver blood.”
“Those poor unicorns,” Mikey said sadly.
“Why were you in the Forbidden Forest, again?” Raph asked.
Donnie paused. “I was looking for Mikey,” he said eventually. The youngest Hamato gave him a quizzical look.
“When?”
The genius looked away sheepishly, then mumbled something under his breath.
“Excuse me?”
“Mutation Day,” Donnie said, louder this time.
“WHAT? ”
“Why were you looking for him there ?” Raph demanded.
“You’ve known about this for over a month? Why didn’t you tell us?” Leo asked angrily.
“Well, I’m sorry !” Donnie snapped. “But there’s been a lot on my mind. I forgot. Big deal.”
Leo narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to ask Donnie another question, but Mikey cut him off.
“So, uh… what are we gonna do about it?”
The youngest Hamato’s question plunged them all into silence.
“Um, nothing, I guess,” Leo said, looking as though the thought was preposterous, but also… freeing. “We don’t have to do anything but stay out of the forest.”
“Well, that was easy,” Raph said, pushing off the wall. “Can we go to the game now?”
The brothers all looked at each other and shrugged, heading toward the Quidditch stadium. But as they walked away, a pool of dread settled in Donnie’s gut.
They all pushed through the crowd of Gryffindor students, making their way to Hermione and Ron. The brothers tensed as jeers and boos were sent Leo’s way. Leo shook his head at Raph’s snarl, Donnie’s glare, Mikey’s cruel smirk— Ignore them, his eyes seemed to say, even as someone tried to shove him. Leo side-stepped easily, pulling his brothers along. He sent Raph a glare as Raph stuck out a foot to trip the kid, sending him tumbling into the people in front of him. Raph only shrugged. Leo sighed, but supposed it was better than having to deal with his brothers beating up a thirteen-year-old. All jeers were quickly forgotten, however, when a loud roar came from the Gryffindor section.
“Hey, guys,” Leo said as they reached Ron and Hermione. “What did we miss?”
“Gryffindor just scored,” Ron said, smiling widely.
“Where were you guys?” Hermione asked, though she, too, was smiling.
Donnie opened his mouth to respond, but a gruff voice cut him off.
“Budge up there, move along.”
“Hagrid!”
Everyone squeezed together to give Hagrid enough room.
“Bin watchin’ from me hut,” Hagrid said, patting a large pair of binoculars around his neck. “But it isn’t the same as being in the crowd. No sign of the Snitch yet, eh?”
“Nope,” said Ron. “Harry hasn’t had much to do yet.”
“Kept outta trouble, though, that’s somethin’,” said Hagrid, turning to Leo and the others. “Who do we have here?”
“Oh, you haven’t met them yet, have you?” Hermione said. “Hagrid, meet the Hamatos: Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo.”
Leo bowed his head respectfully, Raph raised his chin in a ‘what’s up’ motion, Donnie gave an awkward little wave, and Mikey smiled widely.
Hagrid narrowed his eyes at Donnie. “I remember you,” he said eventually. He chuckled a little. “You found what you needed in those books of yers, I hope. Better ter learn about the Forbidden Forest in the library than in the woods themselves, methinks.”
Donnie chuckled awkwardly as his brothers looked at him incredulously. “Ha, yeah, I guess.”
Hagrid nodded contentedly and turned to the others. “Pleasure ta meet you all,” he said.
Ron made a noise of shock, and they all turned back to the game to see a Bludger aiming Harry’s way. Luckily, Fred Weasley chased it down and sent it toward Marcus Flint, the Slytherin captain.
And just like that, everyone was enthralled by the game, even if the Hamato brothers didn’t quite understand it.
“Slytherin in possession,” Lee Jordan, the commenter, said. “Chaser Pucey ducks two Bludgers, two Weasleys, and Chaser Bell, and speeds toward the—wait a moment—was that the Snitch?”
A murmur ran through the crowd as Adrian Pucey dropped the Quaffle, too busy looking over his shoulder at the flash of gold that had passed his left ear.
Harry suddenly dove downward after the Snitch, neck and neck with Slytherin Seeker Terence Higgs. Every Chaser stopped what they were doing, hovering in midair to watch.
Harry was faster than Higgs, but not by much. Still, the Gryffindor Seeker put on a burst of speed, getting closer and closer—
WHAM!
A roar of rage came from the Gryffindor section. Marcus Flint had blocked Harry on purpose, and Harry's broom spun off course, Harry holding on for dear life.
“Foul!” screamed the Gryffindor section.
Madam Hooch spoke angrily to Flint and ordered a free shot at the goalposts for Gryffindor, but in all the confusion, the Snitch was lost.
Next to them, Dean Thomas was yelling, “Send him off, ref! Red card!”
“What are you talking about, Dean?” Ron asked as Mikey and Raph nodded their agreement.
“Red card!” Dean said furiously. “In football, you get shown the red card and you’re out of the game!”
“Dude, you don’t know what soccer is?” Mikey asked, sounding a little disappointed.
"It's football," Dean muttered.
Ron glanced at him and shook his head, turning back to Dean. “But this isn’t football—or soccer,” he reminded him.
“They oughta change the rules,” Hagrid said, evidently on Dean’s side. “Flint coulda knocked Harry out of the air.”
Lee Jordan found it very difficult not to take sides.
“So—after that obvious and disgusting bit of cheating—”
“Jordan! ” snapped Professor McGonagall.
“I mean, after that open and revolting foul—”
“Jordan, I’m warning you—”
“All right, all right. Flint nearly kills the Gryffindor Seeker, which could happen to anyone, I’m sure, so a penalty to Gryffindor, taken by Spinnet, who puts it away, not trouble, and we continue to play, Gryffindor still in possession.”
The crowd watched as Harry dodged another Bludger, this one spinning dangerously past his head before returning their attention back to the Quaffle.
Then it happened.
Harry’s broom gave a sudden, frightening lurch. Then another, as if the broom was trying to buck him off. Only Mikey seemed to notice how Harry’s broom was zigzagging uncontrollably through the air. He was too stunned to speak for a moment. Meanwhile, Lee was still talking.
“Slytherin in possession—Flint with the Quaffle—passes Spinnet—passes Bell—hit hard in the face by a Bludger, hope it broke his nose—only joking, Professor—Slytherins score—oh no…”
The Slytherins were cheering, but Mikey was finally able to find his voice. Frantically, he pointed up and said, “Look!”
Everyone followed his gaze. “Dunno what Harry thinks he’s doing,” Hagrid mumbled. He stared through his binoculars. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’d lost control of his broom… but he can’t have…”
Suddenly, people all over the stands were pointing up at Harry. His broom had started to roll over and over, with him only just barely managing to hang on. The whole crowd gasped as Harry’s broom gave a wild jerk, and Harry swung off it. He was now dangling from it, hanging on with only one hand.
“Did something happen to it when Flint blocked him?” Seamus breathed.
“Can’t have,” Hagrid said, his voice shaking. “Can’t nothing interfere with a broomstick except powerful Dark magic—no kid could do that to a Nimbus Two Thousand.”
At this, Leo’s eyes narrowed, and he and his brothers began to scan the crowd. Hermione seemed to be on the same page, grabbing Hagrid’s binoculars and aiming them at the crowd.
“What are you doing?” Ron asked, his face pale.
“I knew it!” Hermione gasped. “Snape—look.”
They all looked towards the Potions professor, who had his eyes fixed on Harry and was murmuring nonstop under his breath.
“He’s doing something—jinxing the broom,” said Hermione.
“What do we do?”
“I can handle it, but it’ll be difficult getting over there—”
“We’ll deal with that,” Leo said, nodding at his brothers. They all split apart, shouldering their ways through the crowd and clearing a path for Hermione, who grinned. Moments later, she disappeared into the crowd.
Meanwhile, Harry’s broom was vibrating so violently it was almost impossible for him to hang on much longer. Nearly the whole crowd was on its feet, terrified as the Weasleys flew up to try and pull Harry safely onto one of their brooms. But it was no use—every time they got near him, the broom would jump higher still. They dropped lower and circled beneath him, obviously hoping to catch him if he fell. Marcus Flint grabbed the Quaffle and scored five times, but nobody seemed to notice or care, too occupied with Harry and his broom.
“Come on, Hermione,” Ron muttered desperately.
Hermione followed the path the others had cleared for her to the other side of the stands where Snape stood and was now racing along the row behind him. Mikey followed after her, making sure she didn’t get into any trouble. He paused for only a minute when she knocked Professor Quirrell into the front row. Something felt… off, but he shrugged it off and kept going.
It took about thirty seconds for Snape to realize that the hem of his robes was on fire, and at his yelp, Hermione scooped the bright flames off of him into a little jar in her pocket, scrambling back over to Mikey. Snape would never know what had happened, but it was enough. Up in the air, Harry was suddenly able to climb back onto his broom.
“Neville, you can look!” Ron said as the others rejoined them. Neville had been sobbing into Hagrid’s jacket for the last five minutes.
Harry was speeding toward the ground when the crowd saw him clap his hand to his mouth as though he was about to be sick. He hit the field on all fours, coughing, and something gold fell into his hand.
“I’ve got the Snitch!” he shouted excitedly, waving it above his head. The game ended in complete confusion.
“He didn’t catch it, he nearly swallowed it!” Fling was howling twenty minutes later, but it didn’t matter—Harry hadn’t broken any rules and Lee Jordan was still happily shouting the results: Gryffindor had won by one hundred and seventy to sixty.
But Harry and the others heard none of this. Hagrid was making all of them strong cups of tea back in his hut.
“It was Snape,” Ron explained. “Hermione and I saw him. He was cursing your broomstick, muttering, he wouldn’t take his eyes off you.”
“Rubbish,” said Hagrid, who hadn't heard a word of what had happened next to him in the stands. “Why would Snape do somethin’ like that?”
As Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at each other, wondering what to tell him, Raph took a sip of his tea and immediately spat it back out, coughing. Mikey laughed as Raph gagged, sputtering. Evidently, he did not enjoy the tea. Leo and Donnie rolled their eyes.
Raph apologized to Hagrid, setting his tea on the table and leaning back, as though he could taste the tea just by sitting too close to it.
“It’s true, though,” Mikey said, downing his cup in one gulp. “I saw it. Although I did also see—”
“Nonsense!” Hagrid boomed.
“Hagrid,” Harry said hesitantly. “I found something out about him. He tried to get past that three-headed dog on Halloween. It bit him.” Leo sent him a sharp look, soaking in the information. “We—me and Ron and Hermione, that is—think he was trying to steal whatever it’s guarding.”
Hagrid dropped the teapot. “How do you know about Fluffy?” he demanded.
“Fluffy?” everyone said at once. Mikey seemed horrified, but not for the same reasons the others were. The dog’s name is Fluffy? Not The Fanster? The news devastated him.
“Yeah—he’s mine,” Hagrid was saying. “Bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las’ year—I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the—”
“Yes?” Harry said eagerly. The Hamato brothers leaned in, but Hagrid scowled.
“Now, don’t ask me anymore,” he said gruffly. “That’s top secret, that is.”
“But Snape’s trying to steal it.”
“Rubbish,” said Hagrid again. “Snape’s a Hogwarts teacher, he’d do nothin’ of the sort.”
“So why did he try and kill Harry?” Hermione cried. The brothers remained silent, watching the rapid question-and-answer play out.
There’s something more going on, Leo thought.
“I know a jinx when I see one, Hagrid, I’ve read all about them! You’ve got to keep eye contact, and Snape wasn’t blinking at all, I saw him!” Donnie nodded his agreement.
“I’m tellin’ yeh, yer wrong!” said Hagrid hotly. “I don’ know why Harry’s broom acted like that, but Snape wouldn’ try and kill a student! Now listen to me, all of yeh—yer meddlin’ in things that don’ concern yeh. It’s dangerous. You forget that dog, an’ you forget what it’s guardian’, that’s between Professor Dumbledore an’ Nicolas Flamel—”
“Aha!” said Harry. “So there’s someone called Nicolas Flamel involved, is there?”
Hagrid looked furious with himself.
Donnie frowned at the name.
Nicolas Flamel.